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GMO Truffula Trees?

I intend to remain positive and focused on what we CAN do when the madness runs amuck and I feel moral outrage creep up. So I will. I Give Trees that are organically grown, to rural families to restore a rainforest, and you can too by clicking on that link.

But I’d like to pass along some information that I find fascinating – that’s what blogs are for, right? I learned when I got back from my last trip to Brazil, that my former champions, The Nature Conservancy had partnered with Dow Chemical, and they are working in the very same rainforest where we are. And, today I learned that they are one of the main tree planting partners for Universal’s NEW movie “The Lorax.”

“The Lorax Project” is an initiative launched in 2008 by Conservation International, Random House (publishers of the Lorax) and Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Conservation International is also partnered with Monsanto.

What next, GMO Truffula Trees?

In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly last year, the film’s producer and CEO of Illumination Entertainment, Christopher Meledandri described the motivation behind making the Once-ler an “everyman” type character, rather than a nefarious villain: “The minute you make the Once-ler a monster, you allow the audience to interpret that the problem is caused by somebody who is different from me, and it ceases to be a story that is about all of us,” Meledandri explained.

Meledandri also commented that Seuss’s illustrations of the Once-ler suggest that he is human, claiming that the proof is all in the gloves: “If there was a clear sign this character was something other than human, we would have abided by that…But okay, he’s wearing gloves. You’re not going to put gloves on a monster.”

The “glove theory” aside, the Once-ler has long been a point of contention. A popular perspective on Seuss’s book is that the figure is meant to represent the faceless nature of an industry that takes no accountability for its actions. Though Seuss himself once stated in Life magazine that ‘kids can see a moral coming a mile off,” his work often uses metaphor and anthropomorphism to comment upon social and political issues. He even famously described himself as “subversive as hell”

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AFFORESTATION TRAINING

Help sponsor the first Brazilian training of a new generation of environmental entrepreneurs in the Miyawaki method of Afforestation, as recommended by Project Drawdown. We’re bringing Shubhendu Sharma from India to teach the method of his mentor, Dr. Akira Miyawaki. This is a replicatable, organic system of intensive soil preparation, planting of successional native species trees in urban areas, that has been tested globally for more than 40 years. And, we’ll offer scholarships to women who want to learn this as a trade.

NATIVE SPECIES TREES – $25

Help sponsor the gift of trees for an urban food forest. We’ll be planting 300 native species trees in each plot, with an emphasis on tropical staple tree crops. These will include Coconut, Jackfruit, Moringa, Avocado, Mango, Papaya, Pitanga, Aurocaria, Fruita de Conde, Jaibuticaba, Banana, Passionflower, Pineapple and many others! This includes the cost of organic soil amendments, digging equipment, mulch and 2 years of maintenance after plantings. Since there's such a diversity of trees being planted, individual costs vary, so this is a fund toward the whole forest plot, not the cost for one tree.

NATIVE TREE SEEDS – $50

Help sponsor the gift of native species tree seeds from this endangered rainforest. We support back country sustainable seed harvesters who supply their local seed banks and nurseries. These are large bags of seeds, not small packets. The size of the bag depends upon the type of seed, but each one holds approximately 1,000 seeds. This is the way we protect biodiversity.